Adonais Part 9

2.

And ever as he went he swept a lyre Of unaccustomed shape, and ... strings Now like the ... of impetuous fire Which shakes the forest with its murmurings, Now like the rush of the aerial wings 5 Of the enamoured wind among the treen, Whispering unimaginable things, And dying on the streams of dew serene Which feed the unmown meads with ever-during green.

3.

And then came one of sweet and earnest looks, Whose soft smiles to his dark and night-like eyes Were as the clear and ever-living brooks Are to the obscure fountains whence they rise, Showing how pure they are: a paradise 5 Of happy truth upon his forehead low Lay, making wisdom lovely, in the guise Of earth-awakening morn upon the brow Of star-deserted heaven while ocean gleams below.

4.

His song, though very sweet, was low and faint, A simple strain.

5.

A mighty Phantasm, half concealed In darkness of his own exceeding light, Which clothed his awful presence unrevealed, Charioted on the ... night Of thunder-smoke, whose skirts were chrysolite. 5

6.

And like a sudden meteor which outstrips The splendour-winged chariot of the sun, ... eclipse The armies of the golden stars, each one Pavilioned in its tent of light--all strewn 5 Over the chasms of blue night--

NOTES.

PREFACE.

Line 1. _Adonais_. There is nothing to show positively why Sh.e.l.ley adopted the name Adonais as a suitable h.e.l.lenic name for John Keats. I have already suggested (p. 59) that he may perhaps have wished to indicate, in this indirect way, that his poem was founded partly upon the Elegy of Bion for Adonis. I believe the name Adonais was not really in use among the Greeks, and is not anywhere traceable in cla.s.sical Grecian literature. It has sometimes been regarded as a Doricized form of the name Adonis: Mr. William Cory says that it is not this, but would properly be a female form of the same name. Dr. Furnivall has suggested to me that Adonais is 'Sh.e.l.ley's variant of Adonias, the women's yearly mourning for Adonis.' Disregarding details, we may perhaps say that the whole subject of his Elegy is treated by Sh.e.l.ley as a transposition of the lament, as conceived by Bion, of the Cyprian Aphrodite for Adonis; and that, as he changes the Cyprian into the Uranian Aphrodite, so he changes the dead youth from Adonis into Adonais.

1. 4. _Motto from the poet Plato_. This motto has been translated by Sh.e.l.ley himself as follows:

'Thou wert the morning star among the living, Ere thy fair light had fled:-- Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving New splendour to the dead.'

1. 8. _Motto from Moschus_. Translated on p. 66, 'Poison came, Bion,'

&c.

1. 13. _It is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this poem a criticism_, &c. As to the non-fulfilment of this intention see p. 31.

1. 16. _My known repugnance ... proves at least_. In the Pisa edition the word is printed 'prove' (not 'proves'). Sh.e.l.ley was far from being an exact writer in matters of this sort.

1. 21. _John Keats died ... in his twenty-fourth year, on the [23rd] of [February]_ 1821. Keats, at the time of his death, was not really in his twenty-fourth, but in his twenty-sixth year: the date of his birth was 31 October, 1795. In the Pisa edition of _Adonais_ the date of death is given thus--'the----of----1821': for Sh.e.l.ley, when he wrote his preface, had no precise knowledge of the facts. In some later editions, 'the 27th of December 1820' was erroneously subst.i.tuted. Sh.e.l.ley's mistake in supposing that Keats, in 1821, was aged only twenty-three, may be taken into account in estimating his previous observation, 'I consider the fragment of _Hyperion_ as second to nothing that was ever produced by a writer of the same years.' Keats, writing in August, 1820, had told Sh.e.l.ley (see p. 17) that some of his poems, perhaps including _Hyperion_, had been written 'above two years' preceding that date. If Sh.e.l.ley supposed that Keats was twenty-three years old at the beginning of 1821, and that _Hyperion_ had been written fully two years prior to August, 1820, he must have accounted that poem to be the product of a youth of twenty, or at most twenty-one, which would indeed be a marvellous instance of precocity. As a matter of fact, _Hyperion_ was written by Keats when in his twenty-fourth year. This diminishes the marvel, but does not make Sh.e.l.ley's comment on the poem any the less correct.

1. 22. _Was buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants in that city, under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius._ As to the burial of the ashes of Sh.e.l.ley himself in a separate portion of the same cemetery, see p. 23. Sh.e.l.ley lies nearer than Keats to the pyramid of C. Cestius.

1. 33. _The savage criticism on his_ Endymion _which appeared in the_ Quarterly Review. As to this matter see the prefatory Memoirs of Sh.e.l.ley and of Keats, and especially, at p. 39 &c., a transcript of the criticism.

1. 35. _The agitation thus originated ended in the rupture of a blood vessel in the lungs._ See pp. 27 and 37, The _Quarterly_ critique was published in September 1818, and the first rupture of a blood-vessel occurred in February 1820. Whether the mortification felt by Keats at the critique was small (as is now generally opined) or great (as Sh.e.l.ley thought), it cannot reasonably be propounded that this caused, or resulted in, the rupture of the pulmonary blood-vessel. Keats belonged to a consumptive family; his mother died of consumption, and also his younger brother: and the preliminaries of his mortal illness (even if we do not date them farther back, for which some reason appears) began towards the middle of July 1818, when, in very rough walking in the Island of Mull, he caught a severe and persistent attack of sore throat.

1. 37. _The succeeding acknowledgments, from more candid critics, of the true greatness of his powers._ The notice here princ.i.p.ally referred to is probably that which appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_ in August 1820, written by Lord Jeffrey.

1. 42. _Whether the poisoned shaft lights on a heart made callous by many blows._ Sh.e.l.ley, in this expression, has no doubt himself in view.

He had had serious reason for complaining of the treatment meted out to him by the _Quarterly Review_: see the opening (partially cited at p.

17) of his draft-letter to the Editor.

1. 44. _One of their a.s.sociates is, to my knowledge, a most base and unprincipled calumniator._ Sh.e.l.ley here refers to the writer of the critique in the _Quarterly Review_ of his poem _Laon and Cythna (The Revolt of Islam)_. At first he supposed the writer to be Southey; afterwards, the Rev. Mr. (Dean) Milman. His indignant phrase is therefore levelled at Milman. But Sh.e.l.ley was mistaken, for the article was in fact written by Mr. (afterwards Judge) Coleridge.

1. 46. _Those who had celebrated with various degrees of complacency and panegyric_ Paris, _and_ Woman, _and_ A Syrian Tale, _and Mrs. Lefanu, and Mr. Barrett, and Mr. Howard Payne._ I presume that most readers of the present day are in the same position as I was myself--that of knowing nothing about these performances and their authors. In order to understand Sh.e.l.ley's allusion, I looked up the _Quarterly Review_ from April 1817 to April 1821, and have ascertained as follows, (1) The _Quarterly_ of April 1817 contains a notice of _Paris in 1815, a Poem_.

The author's name is not given, nor do I know it. The poem, numbering about a thousand lines, is in the Spenserian stanza, varied by the heroic metre, and perhaps by some other rhythms. Numerous extracts are given, sufficient to show that the poem is at any rate a creditable piece of writing. Some of the critical dicta are the following:--'The work of a powerful and poetic imagination.... The subject of the poem is a desultory walk through Paris, in which the author observes, with very little regularity but--with great force, on the different objects which present themselves.... Sketching with the hand of a master.... In a strain of poetry and pathos which we have seldom seen equalled.... An admirable mirable poet.' (2) _Woman_ is a poem by the Mr. Barrett whom Sh.e.l.ley names, termed on the t.i.tle-page 'the Author of _The Heroine._'

It was noticed in the _Quarterly_ for April 1818, the very same number which contained the sneering critique of _Endymion_. This poem is written in the heroic metre; and the extracts given do certainly comprise some telling and felicitous lines. Such are--

'The beautiful rebuke that looks surprise.

The gentle vengeance of averted eyes;'

also (a line which has borne, and may yet bear, frequent re-quoting)

'Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave.'

For critical utterances we have the ensuing:--'A strain of patriotism pure, ardent, and even sublime.... Versification combining conciseness and strength with a considerable degree of harmony.... Both talent and genius.... Some pa.s.sages of it, and those not a few, are of the first order of the pathetic and descriptive.' (3) _A Syrian Tale._ Of this book I have failed to find any trace in the _Quarterly Review_, or in the Catalogue of the British Museum. (4) Mrs. Lefanu. Neither can I trace this lady in the _Quarterly_. Mrs. Alicia Lefanu, who is stated to have been a sister of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and also her daughter, Miss Alicia Lefanu, published books during the lifetime of Sh.e.l.ley. The former printed _The Flowers, a Fairy Tale_, 1810, and _The Sons of Erin, a Comedy_, 1812. To the latter various works are a.s.signed, such as _Rosard's Chain, a Poem_. (5) Mr. John Howard Payne was author of _Brutus, or the Fall of Tarquin, an Historical Tragedy_, criticized in the _Quarterly_ for April, 1820. I cannot understand why Sh.e.l.ley should have supposed this criticism to be laudatory: it is in fact unmixed censure. As thus:--'He appears to us to have no one quality which we should require in a tragic poet.... We cannot find in the whole play a single character finely conceived or rightly sustained, a single incident well managed, a single speech--nay a single sentence--of good poetry.' It is true that the same article which reviews Payne's _Brutus_ notices also, and with more indulgence, Sheil's _Evadne_: possibly Sh.e.l.ley glanced at the article very cursorily, and fancied that any eulogistic phrases which he found in it applied to Payne.

1. 51. _A parallel between the Rev. Mr. Milman and Lord Byron._ I have not succeeded in finding this parallel. The _Quarterly_ _Review_ for July 1818 contains a critique of Milman's poem, _Samor, Lord of the Bright City_; and the number for May 1820, a critique of Milman's _Fall of Jerusalem_. Neither of these notices draws any parallel such as Sh.e.l.ley speaks of.

1. 52. _What gnat did they strain at here_. The word 'here' will be perceived to mean 'in _Endymion_,' or 'in reference to _Endymion_'; but it is rather far separated from its right antecedent.

1. 59. _The circ.u.mstances of the closing scene of poor Keats's life were not made known to me until the Elegy was ready for the press_. See p.

22.

1. 63. _The poor fellow seems to have been hooted from the stage of life, no less by those on whom he had wasted the promise of his genius than those on whom he had lavished his fortune and his care_. This statement of Sh.e.l.ley is certainly founded upon a pa.s.sage in the letter (see p. 22) addressed by Colonel Finch to Mr. Gisborne. Colonel Finch said that Keats had reached Italy, 'nursing a deeply rooted disgust to life and to the world, owing to having been infamously treated by the very persons whom his generosity had rescued from want and woe.' The Colonel's statement seems (as I have previously intimated) to be rather haphazard; and Sh.e.l.ley's recast of it goes to a further extreme.

1. 68. _'Almost risked his own life'_ &c. The substance of the words in inverted commas is contained in Colonel Finch's letter, but Sh.e.l.ley does not cite verbatim.

+Stanza 1,+ 1. 1. _I weep for Adonais--he is dead._ Modelled on the opening of Bion's Elegy for Adonis. See p. 63.

1. 3. _The frost which binds so dear a head_: sc. the frost of death.